Jesus's "Greatest Miracle"
The joke is funny. The truth behind it isn’t.
There’s a joke about Jesus I’d like to tell you.
Jesus performed many miracles. He turned water into wine, walked on water, healed the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead. But the greatest miracle of all may be this one: He had twelve guy friends in His thirties.
It’s natural to laugh at that joke, but the laughter carries a note of recognition. Beneath the humor is a hard truth many of us know, especially those entrusted with leadership. The higher we climb, the harder it becomes to know who is really walking with us. Power and position attracts people, but struggles to produce friendship.
Many leaders spend their days surrounded by people, and their evenings feeling remarkably alone. We become known for what we do instead of who we are. We have plenty of “deal friends” but aren’t sure if we have many – or any – real friends. Sharing our struggles feels embarrassing or risky. Sharing our hopes feels indulgent or needy. We quietly wonder whether anyone would still want us in their lives if the titles disappeared, the platform grew smaller, or the career wins stopped coming.
Left unattended, that loneliness rarely settles at loneliness. It becomes isolation. Then isolation becomes secrecy. And secrecy has a way of eroding marriages, friendships, integrity, and joy. A person can keep succeeding in public while coming apart in private.
I’ve felt that ache myself.
How Sycamore began
At the end of 2023, my wife and I entered a season of transition we had never imagined. After more than thirty years as a pastor, I knew it was time to resign, but I wasn’t sure what came next. Leading churches was all I had ever known. Then something surprising happened. A new assignment began to emerge – one I never would have considered if circumstances hadn’t made me available to it.
Around that time, my friend Donald Miller invited me to his home. I assumed he wanted to simply encourage me, as good friends do in hard seasons. Instead, he offered me a vision. Somewhat jokingly, Don told me he had “a wonderful plan for my life,” and that if I was willing to hear it, he would share it. I figured anything described as wonderful deserved a hearing.
For some time, Don had carried a burden for leaders like himself – people with outsized pressure, responsibility, and influence. From the outside, many of these leaders appear deeply connected. They have colleagues, teams, audiences, clients, boards, congregations, and in some cases, millions of fans and followers. Beneath the fanfare, though, lives an ache few people ever see.
Then he asked a question that opened the door to my next calling.
“What if your next season wasn’t about serving thousands, but about walking more deeply with a focused few? What if you created a space where founders, executives, and influencers could find what so many of them struggle to find on their own: genuine connection, mutual sharpening, and real friendship?”
I wasn’t sure I was ready for something like this. So Don and I pulled together a few trusted friends and asked what they thought about the idea. All six of them encouraged me to pursue it. Then every one of them asked the same question:
“Can I be part of it?”
That was the start of what we now call Sycamore.
Why we gather around tables
One conviction shapes everything we do. There are countless materials, coaches, and cohorts that help leaders thrive at what they do. Very few help leaders thrive at who they are: healthy and whole, fully alive, human beings rather than human doings.
The name Sycamore comes from the story of Zacchaeus, a wealthy and accomplished leader who was also isolated and alone. Curious about Jesus, he climbed a sycamore tree just to catch a glimpse of Him. When Jesus looked up, He did not begin with correction. He began, as one leader to another, with an invitation into friendship – both with Himself and with the circle of friends we have come to know as His disciples.
“Zacchaeus, I must stay at your house today,” Jesus said.
Before anything visibly changed in Zacchaeus’s life, he was seen, known, and welcomed by Jesus and the others with Him. The transformation that followed – into a man of humility, repentance, repair, and purpose – was born from that relationship.
That became our model. We wanted to create a protected space where leaders could stop managing impressions, discover that being admired and followed is not the same as being known and supported, and pursue becoming healthier husbands, dads, friends, contributors, leaders, and disciples of Jesus together.
By word-of-mouth alone, our initial conversation grew from six to twelve, then twenty, and eventually we capped the first cohort at thirty-three participants – a quiet nod to the years Jesus walked the earth. It was also a reminder that lasting transformation happens in community rather than isolation, around tables rather than on platforms.
From late August through early May, we gathered monthly in Donald and Betsy Miller’s carriage house in Nashville. Our friend Kate set the atmosphere with extraordinary food and hospitality before we turned to teaching, exemplar interviews, and meaningful conversation.
One exercise became the chief project of the year. Each participant wrote his own eulogy, which then became his life plan.
The eulogy’s purpose isn’t to be morbid or to dwell on death. Imagining what those closest to us might one day say at our funerals has a remarkable way of clarifying how we want to live today. It changes the question from “What do I want to accomplish?” to “Who do I want to be and become?” Hence the unofficial motto of Sycamore that says to leaders:
“We want to help you have a great funeral someday.”
Around intimate and trusted tables, it didn’t take long for things to get real. A founder confessed that success had become his identity, and from there his greatest source of anxiety. A physician admitted he had invested more intentionally in his career than in his closest friendships. An executive recognized that while he had detailed plans for growing his company, he had almost none for cultivating his marriage. Each time one man risked that kind of honesty, it gave the others permission to do the same. Over time, transparency led to course-correcting – the kind that wives, children, and colleagues noticed and, in many cases, expressed gratitude for.
What has happened since
When our first year came to a close, I found myself wondering whether we had simply created a nice one-year experience or whether something deeper was emerging. Would anyone want to keep going? And were there other leaders out there who needed this kind of community?
Those answers came quickly.
The next year, Sycamore became two tracks running side by side. A new cohort of leaders began the first-year experience, walking the same path the original group had just completed, while many from that original group returned for a continuation year – a second season of going deeper with each other. Among those who returned was Donald Miller himself. The friend whose question and “wonderful plan” started the whole thing didn’t simply lend us his carriage house. He took his own seat at the table and came back for another year as a participant.
Of course, I can tell you all about what I think about Sycamore as its leader and convener. It's part of my job to do so. But more significant are the men whose life stories and trajectories have been shaped by what they’ve shared together. An executive coach testified that the eulogy project made him more alive to his own life. The CEO of a multinational company said Sycamore addressed the ultimate questions that most leaders wait decades to face. One founder said the experience gave him hope that the peer friendships he had always wanted, but had for years struggled to find, were actually possible. Another described his peer group as a personal and professional advisory board – several of whom he believed would also one day help carry his casket. A bestselling author spoke of how rare and refreshing it was to be in a room full of accomplished leaders who had zero interest in performing or name dropping or posturing, but who showed up with humility and curiosity.
That longing isn’t unique to Nashville. Over the past year we’ve heard from leaders in other cities asking whether Sycamore might someday exist where they live. We’re cautiously exploring that possibility, beginning with Charleston and perhaps one or two additional cities as the right leaders and circumstances come together. We’ve also received requests for an online version of Sycamore, which we’re exploring as well. If that happens, you’ll hear about it here.
Looking back, I’m struck by the kindness of God in all of this. There was a time when I wasn’t sure what the next chapter would look like. In hindsight, I can see the Lord was preparing something I never would have imagined, and for which I’ve become deeply grateful.
Perhaps the greatest miracle wasn’t simply that Jesus had twelve friends in His thirties.
Perhaps it was that He showed us, through an unlikely man like Zacchaeus, that friendship is still possible for the rest of us.
Interested in Sycamore? Learn more or inquire here.
So needed in this day and age!
Sycamore is definitely a grace based ministry of healthy balanced personal renewal that leads to helping others do the same.